Profound and ongoing advances in biomedical science are not being translated effectively into improvements in the overall health of the American public. Though many programs train basic and clinical research scientists, training in research at the interface of medicine and public health is scarce. Addressing this deficiency is vital to the public health. The goal of the NYU School of Medicine proposal is to design, implement, evaluate an innovative new program to train post-doctoral, physician fellows in health protection and preparedness research and create sustainable research linkages between academic institutions and front-line public health agencies. After a rigorous and focused curriculum on core public health disciplines and research methods, fellows will work with one of a cadre of outstanding mentors investigating real-world challenges at the interface of medicine and public health. Organizational partners include the NY City Dept. of Health and Mental Hygiene, the New Jersey Dept. of Health & Senior Services, the Yale School of Public Health, the NY City Health & Hospitals Corporation, and the NYU Center for Catastrophe Preparedness and Response, allowing for a broad diversity in exposure to health protection and preparedness research as well as bidirectional transfer of experience and expertise. Areas of research opportunities in health promotion and disease prevention will include, for example, problems affecting vulnerable urban populations, such as preventing cancer, or managing asthma and preventing associated disability. Research opportunities in preparedness include, for example, mitigating the psychosocial sequelae of terrorism in urban and immigrant populations, evaluation of technologies and methods for detection and surveillance of emerging infections, and bio-monitoring in urban populations. The Division of GIM at NYU School of Medicine is committed to development of a self-sustaining Center for Public Health Research and Training contributing to a significant increase in the Nation's supply of physician public health researchers.